Hydrophobicity plays a pivotal role in mitigating surface fouling, corrosion, and icing in critical marine and aerospace environments.
By employing ultrafast laser texturing, the characteristic properties of a material’s surface can be modified. This
work investigates the potential of an advanced ultrafast laser texturing manufacturing process to enhance the hydrophobicity
of aluminium alloy 7075. The surface properties were characterized using goniometry, 3D profilometry, SEM, and XPS
analysis. The findings from this study show that the laser process parameters play a crucial role in the manufacturing of
the required surface structures. Numerical optimization with response surface optimization was conducted to maximize the
contact angle on these surfaces. The maximum water contact angle achieved was 142º, with an average height roughness
(Sa) of 0.87 ± 0.075 μm, maximum height roughness (Sz) of 19.4 ± 2.12 μm, and texture aspect ratio of 0.042. This sample
was manufactured with the process parameters of 3W laser power, 0.08 mm hatch distance, and a 3 mm/s scan speed. This
study highlights the importance of laser process parameters in the manufacturing of the required surface structures and presents
a parametric modeling approach that can be used to optimize the laser process parameters to obtain a specific surface
morphology and hydrophobicity.
European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under grant agreement No. 862100 (NewSkin), Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Numbers 16/RC/3872
ID Code:
29483
Deposited On:
19 Jan 2024 14:25 by
Abhijit Suhas Cholkar
. Last Modified 23 Feb 2024 15:16